May 11th, 2014

Game Swap
I put Johnny Nero out on location and swapped it out for another gun game that had been on location for a while.  It went flawlessly.  I had the games swapped and was on my way in under a half hour.  Having the location employees assist by holding doors and helping tip over the excessively heavy games really helped. 

Skee Ball
I found one lane with an out of order sign on it.  The blank displays was probably the reason.  Other than the blank display the lane worked fine.  This is the lane that I had found the component with a broken lead on a couple weeks back so it wasn't a surprise to see it act up again.  I tried to take a closer look at the part and it crumbled apart as soon as I touched it.  It looked sort of like a ceramic cap or a MOV.  I checked the manual I have and there isn't any schematics that show the part.  I will call Skee Ball and see if they can help.  It is tempting to convert to LED and be done with it but as usual, I'm not sure the economics of doing that would ever work out.
I pulled out the display assembly and took it back to the shop.  Once I know what the part is, it should be an easy and quick repair.
I had to call Skee Ball support to figure out what the part was.  It took them a while to figure out what it was and no one is still 100% sure but the most likely candidate is something called a CL-160 which is apparently a current limiter of some sort.  I've never encountered that component before in all my years of field service work and game repairs but obviously I don't know it all.  I ordered some from Skee Ball and once they come in, I will find out for sure.

Moved nine balls back into the proper lanes.

Rowe Changer
The service light was on, with the number six code on the display.  I pulled two tickets out of the acceptor and everything was working again.

Tickets
I pulled ticket out of the coin slots on three games.  Probably the same kid is responsible for all three.  I am considering making up some sort of signs that I can put on the games to convince the kids to use the tickets in the redemption counter rather than shoving them into the coin slots.  I suspect that it is probably really young kids doing it so it would have to be really simple for them to understand.  Even if it would stop only a few kids from shoving the tickets into the coin slot and bill acceptors it would save me some time.  Of course if the parents of the young childrent that do this and some of the other abuse that the games take would actually watch thier kids, I would really be better off but I know that isn't going to ever happen.

Skee Ball
The parts order came in and the parts sure look like the part that crumbled.  I need to solder it in and find out for sure.

Sega Star Trek
The repair service let me know that the have repaired and upgraded the monitor I sent in and will send it back this week already.  So far I am happy with the plan of sending it out for repairs as it has been broken for weeks and I still wouldn't have had the time to repair it.

Nickels
I made my weekly stop at a location and walked out with $.80 in nickels that I had pulled from several coin jams in games at the location.  It was probably the same kid that caused all of them.

Slam A Winner
I found it with a Coin jam with a seriously mangled quarter at the root of the jam.  I pulled out several quarters and a few nickels that had been jammed in behind it.  I had to pull the coin mech apart to clear the jam but once I cleared it and put the mech back together everything worked fine.

Johnny Nero
Less than a week on location and I already found that the kids have started messing with the guns and gun hoses for this game.  This may be the last gun game I put into this location if the abuse continues.

Ticket Eater
Paper Jam.  The paper was jamming after the cutter, for it to work properly the paper has to bend slightly after being cut so it gets picked up by the next set of rollers. The paper was bending the opposite way and avoiding the rollers altogether.  It appeared to be due a section of paper being much thicker than it normally is.  I fed enough paper through to get past the thick section and it worked fine then.  I'm not going to be surprised if this shows up again as what are the odds that it was just one spot on the roll that had this issue?

Skee Ball
I soldered in the part that Skee ball had shipped me and replaced several bulb sockets while I had the soldering tools and display board in the same place.  It went well with no surprises.  The real surprise will be when I plug it in and see what happens.